


the way they want us to love

by SeeTheVision



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Best Friends, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, just soft boys trying their best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27447742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeTheVision/pseuds/SeeTheVision
Summary: By middle school, things were different. Their classmates were always gossiping about who liked whom, and the movies they watched were about romance and destiny. Everyone looked at Chenle and Jisung with envy, the lucky pair who had already found their other half.Soulmatesmeant lovers, romance, passion.Somehow, that didn’t seem to fit at all.
Relationships: Park Jisung & Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 54
Kudos: 198
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates





	the way they want us to love

On the first day of kindergarten, Jisung met a boy with a birthmark on his wrist. 

“Hey!” Jisung shoved his own arm in front of the boy’s face. “We have the same mark!”

The boy’s eyes widened. “You’re my soulmate!” he squealed, lisping slightly due to a missing front tooth. “What’s your name?”

From that moment on, Jisung Park and Chenle Zhong were inseparable.

  
***

For years they were blissfully unaware of what it meant to be _soulmates._ Both their parents were soulmates, so Chenle and Jisung played house, tending to baby dolls, pretending to cook by mixing mud and leaves with a stick, mimicking snippets of conversation they’d heard from their parents. _Soulmates_ meant parents, home, family. That fit.

As they grew a bit older, _soulmates_ were the characters in their favorite books and TV shows, going on quests and living happily ever after. At recess in elementary school, the monkey bars became rope bridges over impassable chasms, the slides became rivers of lava, the grass became a dangerous jungle. Together, Chenle and Jisung always won. _Soulmates_ meant adventurers, heroes who always had each other’s backs. That fit, too.

By middle school, things were different. Their classmates were always gossiping about who liked whom, and the movies they watched were about romance and destiny. Everyone looked at Chenle and Jisung with envy, the lucky pair who had already found their other half. _Soulmates_ meant lovers, romance, passion.

Somehow, that didn’t seem to fit at all.

  
***  
  


On Jisung’s sixteenth birthday, he kissed Chenle—not because he wanted to, but because that was what he was supposed to do.

“Huh,” said Chenle, pulling away with a puzzled look on his face. “That was…”

“Gross.” Jisung wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Let’s never do that again.”

Chenle laughed, and everything was fine.

There was no awkwardness; there never was, with Chenle. The worries that might have gnawed away at Jisung’s mind, wondering why he never felt any of the things people said he was supposed to feel around his soulmate— except that he always felt safe with Chenle. As they curled up side by side on Jisung’s bed as they had a thousand times, he trusted that the universe knew what it was doing.

“Happy birthday, Jisungie,” Chenle murmured sleepily, ruffling Jisung’s hair, and that was better than any kiss.

  
***

Throughout high school, everyone assumed Chenle and Jisung were dating. Their soulmate bond was common knowledge, the matching marks on their wrists hard to miss especially considering that they spent all their time together. Neither boy bothered to correct anyone; Jisung didn’t know how to explain to himself, let alone anyone else, _why_ they weren’t dating. And besides, it wasn’t like either of them was interested in dating anyone else.

Until Chenle met Sungchan Jung. 

He transferred to their school senior year, and Chenle was smitten immediately. He never said so in as many words, but Jisung could see how Chenle’s gaze clung to Sungchan, searching for him in every crowd.

Jisung knew he _should_ have been jealous. His soulmate wasn’t supposed to look at anyone else that way, but the fact was that Jisung didn’t _want_ Chenle to look at him that way. He didn’t feel jealous, but his heart ached whenever the sleeve of Sungchan’s t-shirt would ride up, exposing the mark on his bicep. Chenle’s face would fall, and Jisung’s heart always fell with it.

Sungchan found his soulmate at a basketball game. Jisung, his arms tired from waving a poster board with _GO CHENLE_ painted in obnoxious neon pink, watched from the bleachers as a girl shoved her way onto the court, tugging at her shirtsleeve and reaching out for Sungchan’s wrist. Not bothering to watch the rest of the(heartwarming, probably) scene, Jisung searched for Chenle. He spotted the back of his jersey disappearing into the locker room.

He found Chenle sitting against the cinderblock wall, knees pulled up to his chest, face down. Jisung lowered himself to the ground next to him, ignoring the locker room grime, the faint sounds of the crowd from the gymnasium, and the sweat on Chenle’s skin as he put an arm around his shoulders.

“Hey, it’s gonna be okay,” he mumbled tentatively. Over the years, he’d comforted Chenle countless times for countless grievances, but this was foreign territory. For once, his connection to Chenle wasn’t telling him how to proceed.

“Go away, Jisung.” The words were muffled behind Chenle’s hands, but they stung.

“Chenle—”

“Go away!” Chenle launched to his feet, glaring down at Jisung and angrily swiping at the tears on his face. “Just because the universe decided we’re stuck together doesn’t mean you can’t leave me alone. We aren’t even—we don’t—” He cut off with a huff, spinning on his heel and storming away. His footsteps echoed against concrete and metal, the slam of the door as he left reverberating in Jisung’s ears, his head, his chest.

  
***  
  


The next week was easily the worst of Jisung’s life. Whispers followed him down the hallways— _Did they really break up? But aren’t they soulmates? What happened?—_ but Jisung kept his head down and kept walking.

The space by his side was empty, and Jisung felt the absence with every breath. It was like having a tooth pulled and being constantly aware of the gap. It was like having a warm coat stripped away and suddenly realizing that the world was a frigid, desolate place. It was like losing a part of himself.

Considering how much time they usually spent together, Chenle was remarkably good at disappearing. They hadn’t been allowed to sit next to each other in any class since fourth grade(they always distracted each other too much to pay any attention), so Jisung spent the classes they shared staring at the back of Chenle’s head from his seat in the back row.

  
***  
  


A tap at his window made Jisung look up from the math worksheet he was trying, and failing, to focus on. The glass was dark, night having fallen while he wasn’t paying attention. 

Another tap, and this time Jisung saw something small hit the glass and bounce off. A third pebble nearly hit his face when he crossed the room to slide open the pane.

The darkness obscured the face of the figure in the yard, but something tugged inside Jisung like an anchor buried in his chest.

“Chenle?” he called as loud as he dared, not wanting to alert his parents. “Are you throwing rocks at my window?”

“Maybe,” Chenle called back. “Can we talk?”

 _Oh,_ now _he wants to talk,_ Jisung thought, but all he said was, “I’ll be right down.”

In the yellowish light of Jisung’s porch light, Chenle looked as bad as Jisung felt; dark shadows cut under his eyes, which were rimmed in red. The moment Jisung opened the door, Chenle hurled himself into his arms, mumbling _sorry, I’m sorry Jisung, I’m so sorry._

Jisung took a steadying breath, full of the familiar smell of Chenle’s shampoo. As he wrapped his arms around Chenle, something slid back into place, a lock clicking open. He stroked Chenle’s hair comfortingly as tears dampened the shoulder of his t-shirt. Only when Chenle stopped trembling did Jisung pull away enough to look at his face. “Don’t you _ever_ shut me out like that again.”

Chenle’s eyes glistened with fresh tears and he shook his head fervently. “Never, I promise.”

With a nod, Jisung shoved the two of them out the front door, closing it behind them. “Let’s walk.”

Their feet knew the route; ever since they were kids, they walked these streets together, hand in hand. As always, they ended up at the park by the elementary school.

“It looks so much smaller now,” Chenle observed with a sad smile curving his lips, looking at the swings, the slides, the monkey bars that made up their childhood kingdom.

Jisung followed him to the base of an old oak tree. Even with the streetlights, it was too dark to see the initials Jisung knew were etched into the bark, carved there by Chenle’s pocket knife when they were twelve. They sat down, side by side, leaning against the sturdy trunk and gazing in shared silence at the dark shadows of the playground.

“Hey, Jisung?”

“Yeah?”

Chenle’s eyes were wide and earnest, reflecting the stars as they huddled together on the damp grass. “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” Jisung answered honestly. He’d never felt the need to lie to Chenle; there was no one in the world he trusted more. “But… not the way they want me to.”

Chenle nodded, as though that was the answer he expected. “Me neither.” He settled his head on Jisung’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter though. We don’t need to love the way they want us to.”

In the dim light, Jisung caught sight of the matching marks on their wrists, nearly touching as their fingers entwined. _Chenle’s right_ , he thought. The universe gave them each other, and it didn’t matter that they weren’t what the world expected soulmates to be. 

Jisung could live his life with Chenle at his side, and that would be enough.


End file.
